One of the quickest and easiest ways to add a unique touch to a manicure is with a dotting tool. You can use it to paint flowers, hearts, stars, or of course, just plain polka dots. You can find dotting tools in a number of sizes at beauty shops (I managed to get mine at a Japanese dollar store), but if you don't one handy when the mani urge strikes, you can easily DIYFS by sticking a straight pin into the eraser end of a pencil. Voila!

Here's a fast tutorial for creating a mani that looks fancy but is actually just a breeze (and- bonus -dries quickly, too).

I started my manicure with my favorite basecoat from Butter London and two coats of Wednesday by Zoya.

To keep things tidy and convenient, I put a few drops of each shade as I used it (otherwise it begins to harden and dry) into a bottle cap. I kept a cosmetic cotton pad with polish remover nearby to clean off my dotting utensil in between each color.

Start with the brightest and boldest colors in your palette- if you layer more subtle shades on top the overall combined effect will be more balanced and, hopefully, no one color will dominate the final manicure. Pour a few drops of the color into an empty bottlecap (or whatever you find handy for use as a palette board) and dip your dotting tool in the color before evenly applying a number of dots to your nails. I personally tried to go for a more clustered look around my nail base, dissipating towards the nail tip.

Cleaning your dotting tool between each shade, go back over your nails color by color, working from most outrageous color to mildest color. Don't be afraid to have some dots touching or even overlapping! Because of the minimal amount of polish used, your dots should dry fairly quickly. Once the dots have all set, go over each nail with a high-gloss top coat and you're ready to rock!